Songs in Ordinary Time

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “Like always, no calls, no telegrams.” He laughed. “Hey, let’s stop for coffee!” he said as they came to the silver diner at the bottom of the hill. They hadn’t stopped in since Blue had started work. Anthology loved coming here on their way home.

  “I can’t. I’m tired.” He gave it just enough gas to race them by the diner.

  His cousin looked back at the diner and then up at him. “You know something, Blue, you’re turning into a real prick. You don’t wanna do nothing anymore! Not with me, anyway!”

  “Look, I been on the road all day, and tomorrow I gotta be up at five.” It felt so good saying it, he couldn’t help smiling.

  “Hey, I wanna ask you something. How come you got a job if you’re still in the Marines?”

  “I told you. You’re supposed to.”

  “You’re supposed to what?”

  “You’re supposed to do that when your, your…cooldown’s up.”

  “Cool-down? What’s a cool-down?”

  “Come on, don’t,” he warned. “I told you so much I shouldn’t’ve already.” Like Colter, Anthology enjoyed the intrigue of his secret mission.

  “So what, you tell me one more thing, big deal! What am I gonna do, go tell another spy or something?”

  Mooney laughed. “I’m not a spy! I’m a Marine that’s waiting for orders.”

  “Okay, okay, so what the hell’s a cool-down?”

  “That’s when you…you cool down.”

  “Yah?” Anthology persisted.

  “Three months, you cool down. I been out three months,” he said, exasperated that Anthology couldn’t comprehend such an obvious concept.

  “So you cool down and now you’re what? Cool?”

  “Yah, you know, as far as in civilian terms, that is. Cool. Not all…what do I want to say, not always acting like a soldier all the time.” He glanced over, his smile fading with the amusement on Anthology’s face.

  “You’re full of shit, and I hope you know I know that. Okay? I do know. I do,” Anthology said softly.

  “Yah, what the hell do you know?”

  Anthology grinned. “I know you’re not waiting for any special assignment. This is it, isn’t it? What’d they do, throw you out?” His laugh was high-pitched and grating. “Come on, Blue, it’s me, Anthology. You can tell me!”

  “They didn’t throw me out!”

  “What? You quit? You couldn’t take it? What happened, pretty boy? Someone muss up your hair?”

  “Shut up, you little freak!”

  “Hey, I don’t care. I’m just sick of your shit, that’s all, thinking you’re some fucking soldier of fortune all the time or something.”

  He jammed on the brakes, hurling Anthology against the dashboard. “Get out! Get outta my car!”

  “I’ll get out! I’ll get outta your fucking car! And you get outta my fucking apartment!” His stubby arms and legs churning, Anthology scrambled onto the side of the road.

  “I’m out! Consider it done!” He roared off.

  This road led straight up into the Flatts. Mooney’s radio played softly, the spill of its pale glow on the seat the car’s only illumination. He thumped the steering wheel and tried to sing with the music. His voice cracked and the words trailed off as he thought of what Anthology had said about Alice and the priest. He remembered the little church in Cuttingsville his mother had taken him to once a long time ago for some uncle’s funeral.

  “Our Father who art in heaven, hollow be my way!” he yelled out the open window as he sped over the dark winding road past uncles and cousins and more distant kin, to the three narrow chicken coops he used to tend and now his mother let stand empty, rotting into the black loam, and a little farther on, here, her brown cottage and lush garden, vegetables, when it was flowers he wished for her. And there from its post by the road, the bug light’s sickly glow puddled out from the yard onto the road, yellow as beer.

  “No,” he muttered, then said it again as he reached up and unscrewed the hot bulb. Just as he put it into his pocket, the porch door squealed open.

  “Put that light back on,” his mother called. “You hear me? I said put that light back on!” She charged down the steps holding her bathrobe closed.

  “It’s just me, Ma,” he said. “Blue.”

  “What do you want? What’re you doing out here?” she demanded.

  “I told you, Ma, don’t be doing this anymore. I’m making good money now.”

  “Well, you make your good money, and I’ll make mine!” She held out her hand. “Now give me that bulb.”

  “Let me move back, Ma. Please!”

  “I said give it!”

  “I could be paying you room and—”

  “Give me the bulb!”

  “Ma, I haven’t been in one bit of trouble since I’ve been home. You know I haven’t. I wouldn’t pick a penny up off the ground if I found it, I’m so careful. I drive careful. I walk careful,” he said with almost painful longing. “All I want is good things now. That’s all I want, Ma. Honest to God!” Good things, sweet air in his arms, this uniform ironed every day, pants creased and his own money in the pockets.

  “Then how come you’re here? How come you’re not still in the Marines?”

  “I am! I told you, I’m waiting for orders, that’s all.”

  “Travis!” She laughed and shook her head. “You’re just like Kyle. You’re nothing but trouble, and I’m sick of trouble, so give me the bulb. Give me the goddamn bulb!”

  “Here’s your bulb! Here’s your bulb! Here it is!” he bellowed, whipping it at the side of the house. The tiny glass pieces glittered as they drifted down through the night.

  All day long Marie had been filled with dread, with this sense of catastrophe looming. On her way to work this morning she’d almost hit a boy on a bike. Then no sooner was she at her desk than Mr. Tuck called looking for his fee, which she promised to send right out. He asked if Benjy would be able to come tomorrow afternoon, because it seemed clear he needed to be seen more than just weekly. She said Benjy wouldn’t be coming again.

  “Oh! Oh dear,” Mr. Tuck said with a catch in his voice.

  Benjy wouldn’t be coming. He was fine now. The session had obviously snapped him to, she lied. She had to keep reminding herself that this idiot’s wife who’d thrown her son out of her house was Mr. Briscoe’s niece.

  “Well, remember, with the slightest relapse, you be sure and give a call.”

  And then at three o’clock Renie called. The minute she heard his voice she felt sick to her stomach. Had the bank discovered the discrepancy in signatures and contacted him? But he only asked if she’d heard from Sam. Sam? What did he mean, hear from Sam? All Renie knew was that Helen had just told him to call and ask after the hospital had called her. Why? What was wrong? Was Sam all right? Renie didn’t know. “But I think so,” he said. “Because Helen was mad. She was so mad.”

  When she got home she found the overdue notice on her first loan payment in the same day’s mail as the bill for Alice’s first semester at UVM. At the table now Omar was fanning himself with one of the torn envelopes. His collar rim was dark with sweat. “I can’t understand the delay,” he said. “They promised delivery two weeks ago. And I even covered the newest franchise orders out of my own pocket and paid the freight myself to make sure this wouldn’t happen.”

  “But it has,” she said, pacing between the sink and the table. “It has happened, Omar, so now what do I do?”

  “Stay calm,” he said.

  “Stay calm!” she cried, slapping her sides. She wheeled in a little circle. How could he just sit there? “Stay calm? I could lose this house!”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he insisted. “I told you I will and I will.”

  “Then here!” She held out the red-stamped bank notice.

  “Believe me,” he said, sliding it into his breast pocket, “this is the last time you’ll ever see this.”

  “I can’t have them contacting Renie. Oh God, I can’t believe I did th
at. What was I thinking of? I mean, that’s forgery, isn’t it? That’s against the law!” She couldn’t recall thinking anything at the time, only feeling, for the first time in years, actually feeling something deeply.

  “Marie, I’m going to say it one more time now, and I want you to listen carefully. As soon as the soap comes, you will be so busy selling your product that all these worries, all these fears, will seem like a bad dream.”

  A chill went through her, and with it, the image of Sam’s clammy hand groping toward hers, to seal another oath, another promise, reaching from his bed, from a dark corner, promising never to have another drink ever in his whole life, assuring her that someday this would all seem like a bad dream. She folded her arms over the cluttered sink and stared out the window.

  “Marie?” He got up and stood next to her. “What is it?”

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

  “That I’ve gotten myself into a horrible mess.” She looked at him. “I’m trapped. I’m stuck. I’m really, really stuck.”

  “No, you’re not!” he cried. “You’re not stuck. You’re not trapped. You’re rooted, Marie, wonderfully and, I know, sometimes painfully, rooted. But look at all you’ve got! A home. A family. A job. A town you’ve lived in all your life, everything I’d give my right arm to have.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head, as struck by his passion as by his naiveté. The wonder was that he could continue to believe, to have so much faith, so much trust. Didn’t he see what was happening here?

  “You’re a pioneer,” he was saying, flinging his arms in the greasy supper air. She had fried ham steaks in this dented pan on the counter. Disks of the white fat floated in the soak water. “The first of a new age,” he was saying, “a woman as strong and as fearless as a man—no, stronger even than a man, because you need neither man nor woman. You are a woman without guile or excuses.” His eyes gleamed. He smiled, panting a little, not so much to catch his breath, she realized, as to fuel the dwindling flame.

  “I’m a pioneer, all right,” she muttered. She turned on the water. It had to run a good five minutes to get hot. Astrid had a brand-new dishwasher. Last week Astrid had left her husband, had gotten as far as Albany before he caught up with her, and now she pushed buttons to clean her dishes. “A pioneer,” she sighed.

  “Yes! And believe me, Marie, someday there’ll be more of you, women who can stand on their own two feet.”

  “These are awful tired feet,” she sighed.

  “Here,” he said, reaching toward the faucet. “Let me do them.”

  “No. I’d like you to do something else, Omar. I’d like you to call Roy Gold. Right now. In front of me,” she said, looking at him.

  Apparently he knew Gold’s number by heart. He was halfway through dialing when he abruptly hung up. “I’ve got to admit something,” he said. “I’ve been calling all week and I keep missing him. So don’t be disappointed. He’s a very busy man.” He started to dial again. Frowning, with his eyes closed, he asked for Mr. Gold. He looked at her. “Mr. Gold, this is Omar Duvall!” he said, grinning and pointing at the receiver. “Roy, yes. Yes, of course. Well it’s my orders, sir. I’ve got all kinds of anxious distributors here waiting for their soap. Well, I know. Yes sir, I can appreciate that…You’re just so busy, just out straight, business is so good.” He winked at her. “Just fantastic, you say…. Well, I’d certainly appreciate your doing that for me, sir…. You see, there’s this one very special distributor that’s…Yes,” he said, nodding. “Yes, she is. She’s right here, as a matter of fact, sir. Here,” he said, holding out the phone. “He wants to tell you himself.”

  The voice on the line was reassuring and pleasant. Gold apologized for the company’s two-week backup on deliveries, and he promised to do everything in his power to get Omar’s orders out immediately. “These things happen when it’s a product everyone wants, and not only that, but a merchandising concept that’s just all of a sudden now catching fire. Believe me,” he said, “you’ll be glad you waited, because you are getting in on the ground floor of the fastest-growing company in America!”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She handed the phone to Omar.

  “Yes sir.” Omar was glowing. “She feels much better now, and so do I, sir. So do I.”

  A few minutes later she was sitting at the table watching him wash the dishes when the phone rang. It was Sam. Right after lunch he’d walked out of the dining room, out the front door, he said, out of Applegate, and onto the highway. He’d hitchhiked most of the day to get here.

  “Here?”

  “Home. I’m back home, pet. And this time everything’s going to go right. You’ll see.”

  Sleeves rolled up, Omar was humming. He winked as she sat back down at the table.

  It was Alice’s day off and she and Joe were driving toward Albany, looking for some out-of-the-way restaurant where no one would know them. This was the first time since the trip to Applegate that they had been together during the day. In the early-afternoon light he looked much older than he did at night. His face was already dark with stubble and, like his mood, grim.

  The Monsignor had caught Joe sneaking into the rectory Monday at one a.m. His excuse had been a Kennedy for President rally in Bennington. There wasn’t much the Monsignor could say after last week’s letter from the Bishop urging clerical support of those candidates whose positions would be in the best interest of the Church. But for the next two nights Joe played it safe and stayed home.

  This morning when he told the Monsignor that he’d be working all day in Albany on a telephone poll for Kennedy, the Monsignor complained about his mileage. He said if it kept adding up the way it was, he would have to bring the car in again for a tune-up to that crook Archetti, who felt he could charge top dollar just because Archetti footed the bill for the altar lilies every Easter.

  Alice had missed Joe these last two days, and now all he could talk about was the Monsignor. She yawned and smoothed her skirt over her knees. She hated these tirades. It didn’t take much to stir him up. He could go on and on over nothing.

  “And then just as I’m leaving this morning, you know what he said? He said, ‘No stickers, Father! The heat just glues them on the car forever. And don’t forget,’ he said, ‘we have some very important Republicans in this parish.’ And then you know what he said? He looked at me in that judgmental, that critical, that…that sarcastic way he does, and he said, ‘And I should think that you of all people, you more than anyone, would have learned by now, Father Gannon, that a good priest is apolitical.’”

  It confused her to see him so agitated over something that wasn’t even true. Kennedy was just an excuse for them to be together. And here they were, together. She moved closer and smiled.

  “Every time I think of it, I see red! I can’t believe he said that to me!” He banged the steering wheel.

  Said what? Had she missed something? She tried to listen more closely.

  “He’s had it in for me since the day I came!” There was a catch to his breathing, like a pant or a ragged little cry. “A good priest is apolitical, is he? No, a good priest keeps his mouth shut. A good priest doesn’t think! A good priest doesn’t feel! That’s what he really means!” He kept glancing at her. “That’s what he wants, ears and a mouth. That’s what they all want, you know. Maybe he figured I’d been lobotomized or something.” He laughed so suddenly that she laughed, too, then squirmed in the mirthless silence.

  For the next few miles neither one spoke. She twisted her purse strap miserably as he brooded over the road’s curving glare. He was so emotional, so volatile. This intensity she’d first sensed in him made her as uneasy now as it had then. There was too much power here, too much energy for one so used to fleeing it. She felt as if she were being crimped smaller and smaller, like a scrap of paper the air might at any moment seize through the open window. She wished she hadn’t come. Maybe it w
as better at night, when they were tired, when all they could do was hold each other.

  “There’s one!” she said, pointing to the little white restaurant ahead. Even the crushed stone in the parking lot was white. She read the sign, “The White Cottage,” relieved when he said he was starving. Maybe he’d be in a better mood now with all that off his chest. She waited while he locked the car. He put his arm around her, and she leaned against him as they came through the parking lot. It must be awful, she thought, having to listen to people’s problems all day long and never being able to share his own with anyone.

  Inside the bustling dining room his gloom returned, so she tried to do most of the talking. UVM had sent her information about her dorm, her academic adviser, her courses. She even knew her roommate’s name. She still hadn’t decided whether to get the linen service or not, and she had to let them know soon. “But whenever I bring anything up my mother says, ‘Not now. Wait until the soap comes.’ That’s all she talks about now: ‘when the soap comes, when the soap comes.’ God, she thinks her whole life’s going to change when the soap comes.”

  “Don’t be so hard on her. Maybe it will,” he said, making her feel childish and petty.

  Bristling, she carved off a small piece of steak. She hadn’t been criticizing her mother, just trying to keep the conversation light. There was so much she wouldn’t burden him with, her father’s escape from Applegate, her mother’s crying herself to sleep every night because Omar hadn’t been around in days, and her own terrible guilt. Last night she’d dreamed that she was kneeling at the rail waiting for Communion. When the priest came to her she closed her eyes and held out her tongue, but instead he gave the Host to the person next to her. “Wait,” she called softly. “You skipped me.” He looked back in disgust, and she saw that it was Joe.

  “That’s just the way my mother was about my going into the seminary,” he was telling her as he began to cut up his entire steak.

  For a moment she wasn’t sure what Presto Soap and UVM had to do with his going into the seminary. Suddenly she wanted to tell him that she hadn’t gone to Mass in weeks. She wondered if he would tell her it was a mortal sin.